This volume is a collection of sixteen essays that trace the reception of Astrid
Lindgren’s works both in a Scandinavian and in a broader international (mainly European)
context. The articles adopt different scholarly perspectives in order to shed light
on this reception. As the editors mention in the introduction, surprisingly little
academic attention has been devoted to the international and intercultural
reception of Lindgren’s works, in spite of the fact that she has been so widely
translated, read and studied. The book is divided into four thematic parts. Most
of the essays are written in German, with the exception of two contributions in
English, by Ulf Boëthius and Eva-Maria Metcalf.

The first part of Astrid Lindgren – Werk und Wirkung deals with
Lindgren’s reception in Scandinavia. Angelika Nix considers Pippi Longstocking
within the literary context of the “modern breakthrough” or “second Golden Age,”
which occurred in Swedish children’s literature in the mid-1940s. Claus Esmann
Andersen starts from Hans Christian Andersen’s romantic concept of children’s
courageous attitude towards death to interpret The Brothers Lionheart.
Ulf Boëthius considers Pippi Longstocking as a primal orphan figure and analyses
this character with respect to the social context in which it was created: the
public debate on wild youth and bad children.

The main focus of the contributions in the second and most elaborate part of
the book is the translation and international reception of Lindgren’s work. Astrid
Surmatz focuses on political aspects in the books and antifascist and antiracist
interpretations, which she mainly illustrates with examples from the translations
of Pippi Longstocking. Svenja Blume contrasts the positive reactions to
Pippi in Sweden, where she was considered to embody the new ideas on
“free upbringing,” with the negative reception in France, where the book was
completely misunderstood and attempts were made to socialize Pippi. Caroline
Roeder analyses excerpts from the archives of the DDR Book Licensing Council in
order to study the reception of Pippi Longstocking, Mio, my Son,
Karlsson-on-the-Roof and Ronia the Robber’s Daughter. She shows
that the council hardly used any literary criteria for the selection of books,
but merely took into account the author’s and the work’s political and ideological
ideas. In the next article, Rolf Annas considers the influence of Apartheid and
the related cultural context (a time when African books were scarcely read and
foreign texts received with open arms) on the distribution of Pippi
Longstocking amongst different demographic groups in South Africa. In order
to explain the popularity of Pippi in the US, Eva-Maria Metcalf confronts her with
traditional female heroines, such as Mary Lennox (The Secret Garden),
Anne Shirley (Anne of Green Gables) and Judy Abbot (Daddy-Long-Legs).
Next, Tihomir Engler, Tamara Turza-Bogdan and Krunslav Mikulan analyse the effect
of the political situation and modernisation in the former Yugoslavian republics
on the reception of Astrid Lindgren’s books. They argue that varied readings of
Pippi Longstocking (either as entertainment or as a means for social
criticism) have allowed for the book to become a fixed part of the national
children’s canon. Finally, Mare Müürsepp looks into the reasons for the enormous
popularity and influence of Lindgren in Estonia.

Part Three is dedicated to the interaction between Lindgren and other
well-known children’s books authors, resulting in several highly interesting
contributions. Gina Weinkauff compares her to the Italian writer Gianni Rodari.
Both of them are classic authors, yet only the former succeeded in breaking through
in Germany. Weinkauff traces this discrepancy back to the traditional crooked
relationship between Northern and Southern Europeans’ popularity in Germany—Scandinavian
literature is usually received more positively than books from Southern Europe.
Kirsten Waterstraat compares different aspects of Lindgren’s authorship (such as
biography, childhood images, contents and reception) to the Dutch author Annie
M.G. Schmidt in order to question the common parallels drawn between the two writers.
Bettina Kümmerling-Meibauer discusses the huge impact on the concept of picture
books that Lindgren and Anna Riwkin-Brick had with their innovative photo books.

In the fourth and final part, Astrid Lindgren’s writings are scrutinized from
a literary pedagogical perspective. Sonja Müller gives a survey of how German
criticism on Pippi Longstocking made a spectacular turn in the 1950s as
the “Theory of the ‘good children’s book’” (253) gained ground. In the penultimate
essay, Reinert Tabbert studies Lindgren’s presence in German schools. Finally, in
one of the most appealing essays in this volume, Konstanze Jung refutes the
proposition that Pippi Longstocking is a racist book by highlighting
the underlying social criticism.

Although the volume consists of sixteen different essays, it is not hard to
establish a sense of coherence when reading it. The contributors clearly constitute
a (mainly German) network of scholars who regularly refer to each other’s writings.
Interestingly enough, they often depart from a similar starting point but somehow
manage to elaborate on the subject in an entirely different way, thus ending up
with quite divergent findings. The ideas on education phrased by Bertrand Russell,
Ellen Key and A.S. Neill, for example, are often used to prove different points.
Another example are Surmatz’ and Jung’s different approaches to the political
(in particular racist) undercurrent in Pippi Longstocking. Whereas Surmatz points
out that various passages from the books are problematic when viewed from a
postcolonial perspective, Jung tries to prove that the books are rather critical
of the society in which Lindgren wrote them.

In being so multifaceted, the volume allows for each reader to find something
of personal interest—either with regard to method or to contents. The various
outcomes invest the collection with a sense of versatility which can be said to
mirror Lindgren’s own many-sidedness. The overall style used in this volume is
a highly academic German and some of the contributions prove to be rather difficult
to read. It is therefore not easily accessible for the uninformed reader, but it
is certainly a must-read for any scholar interested in the international impact
of Astrid Lindgren’s authorship. Moreover, Astrid Lindgren – Werk und
Wirkung introduces the reader to perspectives on children’s literature in a
variety of countries, and offers useful tools for studying the reception of other
authors in an international context.